Footnote 111: Parallel between the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Essex. Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, p. 163. The testimony of Lord Clarendon that Villiers, like his supposed prototype, the Earl of Essex, was a “fair-spoken gentleman,” not prone and eager to detract openly from any man, “is a greater eulogy,” and to this, the noble historian adds another, which, he affirms, “the malignant eye could not refuse to Villiers;” “that certainly never man in his place or power did entertain _greatness more familiarly_,” an expression singularly felicitous, as conveying a sense of that innate greatness which exalts its possessor above conventional distinctions. His looks were “untainted by his felicity.”[112] No conscious importance, no haughty contempt, none of the littleness of pride, disgusted his equals or depressed his inferiors. “This, in my judgment,” remarks Clarendon, “was one of his greatest virtues and victories of himself.” Footnote 112: Ibid. The elevation of Villiers appears, however, not to have been so spontaneous as Lord Clarendon supposes. “Once commenced, it ran,” says Sir Henry Wotton, “as smoothly as numerous verses, till it met with certain rubs in Parliament.” Thus, to borrow still from the same author, “the course of royal favour being uninterrupted, the Duke’s thoughts were free.”[113] Footnote 113: Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, p. 166. Meanwhile, the most fearful disclosures were shocking the public ear, and rendering more secure than ever the prosperity of Villiers. In the month of March, 1616, Lady Somerset was committed to the Tower. So promptly were the measures now resolved upon executed, that she had “scant leisure,” as a contemporary relates, “to shed a few tears over her little daughter at the parting.”[114] This was the single touch of natural affection which is latent in every heart, and was not wholly extinguished even in the heart of the unhappy woman. Having given way to that burst of emotion, she bore herself, as the same report states, “constantly enough,” until she was carried into the enclosure of the Tower. Then, affrighted and conscience-stricken, she did, according to the same account, “passionately deprecate, and entreat the Lieutenant, that she might not be lodged in Sir Thomas Overbury’s lodging, so that he was fain to remove himself out of his own chamber for two or three nights, till Sir Walter Raleigh’s lodging might be furnished and made fit for her.” Footnote 114: Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir O. Carleton; March 6, 1616. State Papers. Also given in the “Grand Oyer of Poisoning,” by Andrew Amos, Esq.